Belladonna
by rendezvous
Summary: What is so infinitely precious that you'd die if it were taken away from you? Sesshoumaru plays unwilling witness; some hints of SxK.


Belladonna 

Nightshade and poison; she loses so much more than just a part of herself.  

-

In the center of clearing stood a woman, dark hair and clothes fluttering in brisk wind.  Her eyes were closed, lashes black shadows on stark-white complexion, and she was mouthing formless words with lips colorless as alabaster.  The moon hung a pale half against a backdrop of velvet dark, bathing her figure in light as she raised empty hands up to the sky.  

On the floor near her laid a fan: sandalwood, delicately made, and broken.  

For a moment she seemed to concentrate, a furrow appearing between arched brows, hands clenching until individual tendons stood out along the length of her thin arms.  Then she let out a muffled growl of pain, sinking to her knees.  Her kimono folded into ragged creases before she smoothed it out, ignoring the stains that grass left upon cloth.  

The cloth.  It was silk, she knew, lovingly brushed out everyday by her alone, kept in its best condition despite messy battles and messier dealings with rebel youkai.  In return, it sat upon her person so softly it felt apart of her being.  God knew, it was the only thing that she owned, the only thing that was truly hers.

Now the woman reached out with a hand that shook only slightly, a hand that hesitated only a second before it picked up the fan.  Sandalwood—made especially for her.  And it had worked; it had channeled her winds so well.  

She would've cried, if she had only had a heart.

The tall stalks of dandelion of wild grasses swayed to the song of the wind; the trees rustled their slender branches, slim birches and ancient oaks alike, and in the clearing the lady-slippers swayed heads butter-yellow; strands of hair drifted out from the knot at the base of her neck, brushing against her cheeks and obscuring her vision.  The wind trailed along her skin, cool and welcoming.  Only, she no longer had the means to be welcomed. 

The woman touched the broken fan to her lips.  "Naraku,"she whispered, and closed her eyes.  Silence dropped its silken net over the woman, and out of the shadows, the spirits of the forest watched her with curious gazes.

_Useless.  Faithless.  A whore who knows only betrayal.  A woman with no heart, because she had no heart in the first place.  Not really.  Not at all._

She sat unmoving for longer than she knew, and when she finally opened her eyes they were still as dry and unmoved as if nothing had happened.  But her hands had clenched around the fan, and now she brought it down upon the ground, cracking frail wood further.  When it had been hers—when it had been infused with magic, her winds—the fan had been virtually indestructible.  Through common demons, powerful youkai, the other elements of earth and fire and water, even Inuyasha's legendary Tetsaiga, it had survived and come through.  

Now it was just so much wood.

The wind caressed her form now, flowing like water, but she was not one with it.  If she splayed out a hand, it would not come dancing to her fingertips.  If she closed her eyes and stepped off a cliff, it would not catch her.  If she died, it would not mourn the loss of her being.

"Naraku."She laughed, and it hurt even herself to listen to it.  "Look what you've made out of me."The fan she drove into the ground again, bruising her palms and forcing splinters up into flesh and just—not—_caring._

The winds were her wings.  The winds were her life, her lover, her only friend.  The winds were _her._

Her laughter died halfway up her throat.  "Faithless whore, huh?  You bastard.  You see—you see if I'm going to just die like you want me to," and the laughter had warped into a raw whisper, because she knew that she had no way of defending herself now that she was just a ordinary woman, almost human in her weakness.  If any of the youkai she had played around with in the past happened to catch up with her, her descent into hell would be one slow and painful. 

"Kagura."

She whipped around with her heart in her throat.  In the space of a breath, she was afraid—really, truly _afraid._

Because she was weak now, helpless as a human babe left out to die.

"Sesshoumaru," she said, very calmly.  "I've been waiting."

His eyes were cold on her face.  "Show me to Rin, like you agreed."

"Naraku has your precious human girl.  I am an innocent bystander who knows but nothing."  She flipped the broken fan into the sleeves of her kimono with a swift sleight of hand; stood to her feet as elegantly as she still could.  

"You will tell Naraku to return her to me, safely."

"No."  Fear pounded in her head like wine, but she faced him with a confident façade.  "Sesshomaru-_sama_, I am afraid I cannot."

His eyes slitted like a cat's.  "You disobeyed your master."

"I disobeyed Naraku like you told me to."

No smile, no frown, no expression at all.  "I did not force you into it."

"No, no, of course not.  It was a mutual partnership."

He made a small contempt sound.  "It is no partnership."

"But I know you want my help.  I can't help you, Sesshoumaru."  She reached out with a steady hand; reached out with the broken fan grasped between fingers and pressed against aching palms, the pain of splinters she readily ignored.  "Look."  She opened her hand, and the wood lay there like pieces of a wrecked mast.

 "I am weak, but still youkai," she said, "I will live only as Naraku wants me around to torment."

He looked at her for the longest time.  And then:  "You do not cry, woman."

She almost flinched back.  "What?"

"Women are weak," he said, turning away.  "The ones that I have known all my life have been only weak sloths who know only to cling to their men like parasites, and when those men leave them they cry until they have no more tears left to shed.  And then they latch onto another man, and the cycle goes on."  His voice was that of a cold monotone, as if he didn't know why he was telling her this at all.  "Go on, Kagura."

"You are a pig," she said, and couldn't keep the contempt out of her words.

"Go on," he said, deliberately ignoring her.  "Break down and cry and weep and act the weakling woman."

"I am not weak," she half-screamed, and she was screaming because she knew she was.

"Liar woman," he said, and grabbed her around her wrist.  "Your winds have deserted you, there is no one this world who cares for you, and you are—are—all—_alone!_"  He punctuated each word with a rough shake, voice livid.  But his face was calm, mask still.  He released her so abruptly she fell down onto the grass with legs tangled together.  "Idiot wench," he said, and turned to go.

"Sesshoumaru."  She couldn't help but laugh, small, hiccupping giggles that bubbled somewhere deep down in her chest and refused to stop until she'd poured all the hysteria out of herself.  "You know what you just said—was true."

"Is it so funny?" he asked coldly, but he had stopped.  

"No.  But everything you said is true—" she said, and tried harder not to laugh, "—_for you too_."

He said nothing in return, and she pushed herself off the ground.  "You know it's true.  It's as true as me being a weak common youkai now.  You have no one, not even your precious Rin, because she's as good as dead now that Naraku's got his grimy hands on her.  Your brother tries to kill you every time he sees you.  You have no family; even your toad servant fears you."  She stepped in to him, not caring how close his hand had come to rest upon his sword; only to push him farther, to see how far he could go.  Against all common sense, she wanted to _know.  _

"Stop when you can," he said, softly.

"You're pathetic."  _Useless.  _"Taken so with a human child."  _Faithless, _she thought, and still managed to laugh in his face.  "Being the Lord of the West must be so lonely, Sesshoumaru-sama."  

_A whore who knows only betrayal._

He was looking down on her.  When he slid his sword out of its sheathe she did not look.

"I warned you, Kagura."

"I know."  Metal bit gently into her throat like a lover's kiss.  She looked at him, his face cold and smooth and beautiful in moonlight as only a youkai lord's could be.  He was close, closer than she had ever seen him get to anyone, and for a moment it seemed like he might kiss her, breath warm against her mouth and eyes only a little hot-angry.  

"Cry," he said.  "Be a weak woman and beg for your life."

And she said, softly, "You know I won't."

She thought he might touch her, only he didn't.  She thought she saw him smile, just a small curve of lips.  She thought he withdrew his sword.  She thought.

The wood splinters spilt from her grasp to tumble onto the ground, and she fell with it.

-

When she awoke the next morning, dawn had already thrown open its rosy curtains to greet a new day with liquid sunshine and a brisk breeze that stirred her hair.  The woman pushed herself off where she lay on the ground, and stretched, very carefully, as if it mattered.  Something on the ground caught her eye.

Next to her lay her sandalwood fan: delicately made, and broken.

_But it can be fixed._

She thought she would live.  She thought she _wanted_ to live.  And she thought, _he had let her._

"I will be seeing you," she said to no one at all, "Sesshoumaru."__

_--fin._

AN: Meep.  Wrote this months ago (which probably explains some of the stilted prose), did a little cleaning up, messed around with sentencing, then finally posted it.  For those who are still looking for updates on Starbreak, I apologize for the horrible long wait.  I promise I'm going to go work on it right now.  In the meantime, have a cookie! ^_______^       


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